Last year’s runner-up Ramkumar Ramanathan started his campaign at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport with a win over veteran Sergiy Stakhovsky. The Indian world No 134 saved a match point to fight back from a set down and win 5-7, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2.
Ramkumar, who had reached the final of the ATP 250 event on grass last year, had to qualify for the tournament this year. In the qualifications, he beat Maxime Cressy and Yuichi Sugita.
In the first round, he faced a tough test against world No 145 Stakhovsky who had famously stunned Roger Federer at the 2013 Wimbledon.
He dropped the first set after a fight before pushing for a tiebreak in the second and battling match point. In the decider, he took an early lead and was a double break up to seal the match.
The Indian will have an even tougher test in the next round as he takes on fourth seed Ugo Humbert. The French player is coming off his best Grand Slam result at Wimbledon, where he played eventual champion Novak Djokovic in the fourth round before losing.
Meanwhile, American wildcard Christopher Eubanks knocked out defending champion Steve Johnson 7-6(9), 7-6(5) who had beaten Ramkumar in the final.
In the doubles, Leander Paes and Marcus Daniell bbeat Max Purcell and Luke Saville 2-6, 6-2, 10-5 while the all-Indian pair of Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Purav Raja went down 7-6(3), 7-6(10) to Gong Maoxin and ZHang Ze.
